2 RICHARD ASSHETON AND THOMAS G. STEVENS. 
the sole specimen in existence of an elephant’s placenta at full 
term; that of Owen’s being “d’un foetus de six mois environ 
d@aprés mon examen .... Je puis dire que Ioccasion 
d’obtenir un placente d’éléphant ne s’est pas encore pré- 
sentée, méme en Orient, ni dans l’Inde ni dans le Siam; j’ai 
recu des lettres des hommes qui gardent les éléphants royaux 
qui affirment que la naissance d’un jeune éléphant est tout & 
fait inconnue.” Though this may be an exaggeration of its 
rarity, still it is clear that the difficulty of obtaining a 
placenta is so great that we ought to take full advantage of 
the present opportunity, especially as the records of previous 
observations are meagre, and do not afford us any informa- 
tion upon matters which are now of special interest, on 
account of the advance which has been made in the know- 
ledge of the minute anatomy, and of the development of the 
mammalian placenta during the last twenty years. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Beddard some pieces of the 
foetal placenta of the elephant born in the Zoological Gardens 
came into our hands, and we herewith record the results of 
our investigations and the interpretation we place upon the 
structures observed. There can be little doubt that the calf, 
although it never lived after birth (Beddard, 2), was born at 
full term. The actual date of impregnation was not known, 
but it was believed to have been in April, 1900. Accordingly 
the birth of the calf was expected in February, 1902. The 
event, however, did not occur until more than six months 
later. The histological characters of the placenta, as explained 
below, also point to the placenta as being fully formed. 
Previous Observations. 
The foetal membranes and placenta of the elephant were 
described by Owen (18) in 1857, who obtained from Dr. Morton 
in India the membranes of a fcetal elephant. These mem- 
branes, which had been preserved in “a keg of arrack,” were 
supposed to have been of the period “at about the middle of 
the period of utero-gestation.” 
